I stood on the BIW Technologies stand today, and I waited … and I waited…. And people on neighbouring stands waited … and waited…. Then we started muttering to each other…. And then some started muttering discontentedly to the event organisers, BTC….
Yes, the first day of the Construction Computing Show 2007 – despite its new home at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium – has been remarkable only for the low number of visitors. There was a table covered with badges for pre-registered visitors but precious few of them turned up today. I reckon my colleague and I spoke to only half a dozen genuine visitors (as opposed to people wandering round the stands trying to sell their services to exhibitors) during the day.
As a result, the ITCF-managed seminar programme has also been equally poorly attended. Just nine visitors attended my seminar (excluding 4Projects’ MD Richard Vertigan – who had to disappear for a client meeting after just a few minutes), but I did better than most (marginally beating Asite and 4Projects, I think) – some didn’t even get a single attendee!
Where are all the visitors? As I wondered two days ago, have all the industry gone to the Civils show at Earl’s Court? Or were they all heading home (or to their chosen pub) for the England v Croatia game tonight? I moaned about last year’s event, the organisation and marketing this year hasn’t noticeably improved, and the new venue – while better than the Barbican – is not as ideally situated in central London.
I heard one exhibitor say that the second day of last year’s event turned out to be a bit busier, hoping that the same would be true again. However, on today’s experience, I won’t be bringing BIW back for 2008, and I doubt many others will be returning either.
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I can share with you a similar experience at Batimat, which was held in Paris a few days ago. It’s a much more general construction show, but in the IT hall, people were there only for CAD/BIM and ERP packages. Prosys and its competitors only had a handful of visitors for collaboration and document management services.
Our parent company , Groupe Moniteur organises in 2008 a show (Constructeo) targeted at property owners. We hope to find there a more focused audience.
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